Saturday, 4 May 2013

What if Cars Suddenly Disappeared?

“I imagine that one fine morning we shall wake up with apparatus
ready to take us to our offices by an automobile carriage…But…I cannot
conceive our active Americans adapting themselves to the pursuit of
pleasure in carriages moved…by any other motor but the horse. What has
made the bicycle so universally popular but the one fact that it permits
of action on the part of the rider, that it affords excitement?”

It got me to wondering how life would be if cars were simply gone - taken up by some kind of supernatural force. All of a sudden roads would be a lot safer. People wouldn't have any reason to be afraid of cycling - there would be little to fear apart from maybe a few bumps and bruises from the occasional collision with another cyclist, or from the occasional fall. I wonder how many people would take up cycling if our national road system existed purely for cycling? Even if there were a faster alternative mode of personal transport (hey, whatever happened to the flying cars we were promised in the 1960s anyway?), my guess is that there would be a whole lot of folks who would choose to pedal.

1 comment:

Thanks for the Early Warning link. Sigh. I'm not sure we are all the way to the real dystopia yet. Its bound to get worse--when we have finished building the suburban enviornment and are depending almost entirely on tight oil to sustain it. My hunch is that we will race to the future a little like Wile E. Coyote racing towards the cliff, only realizing he is in mid air after having run off the end of the canyon. We know what happens next.

About Me

I'm from Sheffield, Yorkshire. I lived my first 22 years in England. Between 1984 and 1986, I cycled 10,000 miles throughout Western Europe. I met my American wife in Austria in 1988 and moved to the USA in 1989. I've worked as a shop assistant, a draughtsman, an artist, a bartender, a picture framer, a writer and a genealogical researcher. My daughter and I are probably "The Silver Spring Cyclists" - the only people in town who commute on the bike every day through fair weather or foul: rain, snow, hot or cold. No matter what, we're out on our bikes.

Quotes on Cycling and Society

"When a cow follows the herd, it ends up at a slaughterhouse. When cyclists use bike facilities, they end up at an intersection, often with the same unhappy result as the cow. Use the road - it's safer!" - me again.

"Vehicular cycling techniques have not been tried and found difficult. They have been presumed difficult and not tried." - P.M. Summer, paraphrasing G.K. Chesterton

"If American bicycle advocacy leaders had championed the civil rights movement, the 'Dream' would have been reserved seating in the back of the bus." - Jack R. Taylor

"The task of the 'protected' bicycle facility is to hide collision participants from each other right up to the point of impact." - John Schubert

"Position on the road is by far the most important influence that a cyclist has over his safety. Indeed, the loss of this ability to influence the actions of others is one reason why road-side cycle tracks and shared footways increase danger at junctions. Many cyclists fail to position themselves properly because of their fear of traffic, yet it is this very fear that puts them most at risk. Encouraging unsafe behaviour by directing cyclists to more hazardous positions does nobodyany favours." - John Franklin

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so" - Mark Twain